Phantoms
by Tally Mark
Summary: If he was losing it, then she was lost with him. SessKag drabble set.
1. Left handed

**Title:** Left-handed

**Author:** tallymark

**Genre:** Romance/General

**Word count:** 250

**Rating:** G

**Warnings:** Um. Kinda trippy?

**AU/Canon:** Canon

**Summary:** If he was losing it, then she was lost with him, so it was okay.

_Author's note:_ This was written for week nine of the ebonysilks challenge, for the theme "Break." It was intended as a complete, self-contained piece, and I still consider it to be so. However, the idea wouldn't quite leave me alone, and I finally caved: there will be a few more drabble-sized chunks to this. But it also still reads as a stand-alone.

The title of this story is _Left-handed_; _Phantoms_ is just the name of the collection.

* * *

He didn't miss his arm because it was still there.

He knew it was there because he could still use it.

Every night he slipped into their camp to touch her—only while she slept, and only with his phantom arm. So she wouldn't know.

Marveling, he would hold his palm above her lips and feel her breath puff over it. He would twist ghost fingers in her hair. Drag imaginary claws across skin.

When he pressed the back of his phantom hand to her, she warmed him. When he cradled her head in the arm that didn't exist, she mumbled and clutched his sleeve. And when he splayed his hand across her ribcage, he could feel her_ heart beating_. Fluttering under his fingertips, making _his_ heart race.

He didn't understand how it worked. For anything else, even Rin, the arm was empty air. He could touch only her. _Feel _only her.

But it _was_ real. Because on some nights, when he softly grazed her cheek with his knuckles, she'd wake up.

From the trees he'd watch as Kagome sat up in her sleeping bag. Touching her cheek, she'd shiver and look around. "I think I'm going crazy," she whispers, tracing the path his fingers took.

Yes, he'd muse, the arm was there. It was his mind he had lost.

But he didn't miss that either. Because if he was breaking from reality, then so was she, and they were stranded on the same jagged little piece of it.

Together.


	2. Caught Red handed

I wrote this ages ago and I can't believe I forgot to upload it. This part, _(Caught) Red-handed_, was written for the ebony-silks challenge, 'Falling' theme. It won second place!

This story is still sort of trippy. But I love it anyway. (It's funny how it's one of my personal favorites, yet it's my least popular. Oh well!).

Summary: He fell for it.

* * *

She had started setting traps for him. 

There were packets of crunchy food around her sleeping bag. Trip-wires hidden in the leaf-litter, attached to tin cans and bells. A tiny kitsune disguised as an owl sat in the branch above her.

The first two were easily side-stepped, and the fox fell asleep at his post long before the night was out.

Those nights, he breathed low laughter against her ear and mumbled into her hair how clever she was. How endearing he found it. His voice was inaudible, just beyond the edge of human hearing; a whisper only dogs could hear. He stroked her forehead with his phantom hand.

After that was a box, tied to a tree. Small and gray, set with a circle of dark glass in the front and a red, blinking light on the back.

He did not understand what it was, but he had an idea of what it was for.

Staring into his pale reflection in the glass, he had the mad, heady urge to fall for it on purpose. Like a cliff beckoning him to jump. But that was the madness speaking, he knew.

With a grim slash he melted the box.

After that, she gave up. No more traps, no more seeking him out. Weeks and months went by without disturbance. Despite himself he was disappointed. He missed the game. But he was also relieved; to be discovered would be suicide, for his nights with her would end, and with them would go the last of his sanity. He knew it was better this way.

Tonight though, Sesshoumaru was caught by surprise.

Tonight he crouched beside her, head tilted. His hair pooling around him on the forest floor.

There was a letter clutched in her sleeping hands.

A crisp white envelope, scribbled on in blue ink. Curious, he leaned closer to read it. It was addressed:

_To my dreams_.

Sesshoumaru's heart beat frantic wings against his ribcage.

Gently, he tugged her fingers open with one hand—the left—and took the letter with the other. There was a single sheet inside, which read:

_Are you real?_

He jerked back, hands trembling. His mouth opened as though to answer, then clicked shut. _Yes_, he said inside his mind, willing her to hear and not to hear. _Yes, yes_. Thoughts whirling, he staggered to his feet—and felt the letter almost tug out of his hand.

Frowning, his eyes trailed across the paper, and too late he saw the thin, clear thread—now taut—that ran down from the letter to tie around the sleeping miko's finger.

Just as he began to pull away, her hand snapped up and closed around his phantom wrist.


	3. Bare handed

This part was written to the ebonysilks theme 'Over', but I got stuck and didn't finish in time. It took forever, but I finally went back and got it unstuck! The trippiness continues at last.

Summary: Fishing for dreams is tricky business.

* * *

She didn't dare open her eyes or the dream would be over. 

The arm snatched back and Kagome squeaked and hung on as she was lifted clear out of her sleeping bag. Heart skittering, she wrapped both arms around it and squeezed her eyes tight. It had taken her so long to catch her dream—she wasn't letting it get away this time!

The arm went completely still. It was so warm and real she nearly cried. She held on, suspended in midair, waiting for something to happen. She _wanted_ to look, but even awake she was afraid it might vanish out from under her. The dream was always real only until she opened her eyes.

Minutes felt like hours. The arm gave her a tentative shake; she made a sound between a sob and a laugh.

Her prisoner, failing to dislodge her, stilled again. Briefly.

Then inertia tugged her stomach. She gasped, legs swaying. They were moving—leaving the campsite.

When the breeze died she felt herself being lowered. Her toes touched the ground.

_Don't look_, she thought desperately

"I'm not letting go," she whispered.

A tired, dusty laugh startled her.

"I will not run," a somber voice intoned. It paused. Then, sadly, "You will."

She looked.

The dream not only didn't vanish, it looked back.

And as he met her gaze with pale, solemn eyes, Kagome wondered, briefly, if maybe she really had gone crazy after all. Because the phantom figure of her haunted nights—the dream she had caught with her bare hands, and still clung to—was someone _impossible_.

But she didn't run.

And neither did he.


End file.
